A Miura's ranch fighting bull's broken horn is seen during a bullfight of the San Fermin festival, in Pamplona, Spain. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

(Newser)
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Americans will no longer have to travel to Spain to get trampled on by hordes of running bulls. The Great Bull Run, a new US-based event, will allow thrillseekers to experience Pamplona's favorite pastime stateside, reports the AP. The first run will be held near Richmond, Virginia, on August 24, with about 5,000 people already signed up to sprint through a fenced-in course set up on a drag-racing strip. A second event is scheduled for October in Atlanta, with more planned for Texas, Florida, California, Minnesota, Illinois, and Pennsylvania sometime in the future.

The organizers of the Great Bull Run say their event will be safer than the famous Spanish festival that inspired them, where many runners are brutally gored every year, and even sometimes killed. The course will have built-in "coves" that allow the participants to quickly get out of a bull's path, while the bulls used will be locally bred and less aggressive than Spanish fighting bulls, they say. And unlike Pamplona, the organizers say their bulls will not be killed or deliberately mistreated. Still, the Humane Society is predictably unimpressed. "These events are a shameful example of cruelty for the sake of nothing more than entertainment and profit," says a spokesperson, per USA Today. "We call on the USDA to investigate these entities immediately."

Running with the bull's may be smarter than debating the politicians !!!!

Pointy01

Aug 12, 2013 10:24 PM CDT

At long last, an event in which all of the US Politicians can share in.

heyzeus

Aug 5, 2013 9:33 AM CDT

Why are we importing this foreign savagery and stupidity to our shores? Want to run with the bulls? Run after politicians and the clergy, the two biggest loads of bull that exist. As an Hispanic I am appalled that this animal abuse is being 'celebrated.' PETA - we have got to stop this irrational lunacy.